Senator calls extended Gulf oil leak ‘unacceptable’

Florida – Sen. Bill Nelson from Florida recently sent a letter to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson seeking the disclosure of information about a Gulf of Mexico oil leak that began more than a decade ago. According to an Associated Press (AP) report, Nelson referred to the ongoing spill as “unacceptable.”

The matter pertains to an ongoing leak off Louisiana's coast affected by the 2004 toppling of an oil platform owned by Taylor Energy Company during Hurricane Ivan. Nelson, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, is pushing federal officials to release information about the leak after an AP investigative report found the spill may be more severe than stated by government regulators and others.

Nelson is quoted by the news source as stating during a telephone interview, “If you've got an oil rig that's been leaking for 11 years, then it's time for us to find out what's going on.”

Included on the list of technical data Nelson wants released are estimates on the flow rate since the beginning of the leak.

Nelson further wrote in the letter, “It is unacceptable that in the eleven years since a hurricane caused an underwater mudslide, crude oil has continued to flow unabated into the Gulf of Mexico — especially given the attention focused on such accidents by the BP oil spill almost exactly five years ago.”